American airstrikes are now being launched in support of Iranian-backed militia fighters on the ground against IS.
Those militias are enmeshed in the Iraqi Army. The breakup of that country would be unconscionable.
Political prisoner, activist, journalist, hymn-writer, emerging thinktanker, aspiring novelist, "tribal elder", 2019 parliamentary candidate for North West Durham, Shadow Leader of the Opposition, "Speedboat", "The Cockroach", eagerly awaiting the second (or possibly third) attempt to murder me.
What? The Iraqi Government was always Iranian backed. The Shia are the majority in Iraq and in a "democracy" they'll always dominate and brutalise everyone else in Iraq as they were before ISIS.
ReplyDeleteThe breakup of a Iraq is the only civilised option.
It should never have been created.
Unless you think the Baathist regime that gassed Kurds, tortured women and children and starved half a million Shia children to death was a successful country...
In which case you need help.
Iraq always had to be broken up.
And we have finally realised an independent Kurdistan is the best bulwark against IS. Of course.
Except that, very clearly, we have "realised" no such thing. The Americans are not bombing anyone from the air on behalf of the ground forces seeking that.
DeleteLindsay obviously doesn't realise the West has been directly arming the Kurdish forces seeking independence for over a month: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/now-the-west-is-arming-the-kurdish-army-when-will-it-admit-the-peoples-right-to-a-state-9667320.html
ReplyDeleteDo the "keep Iraq together at all costs" fanatics realise what that means in practice?
An eternal Iranian and Saudi sponsored civil war between Sunni, Shia and Kurd (not to mention the poor Christians and Yazidis etc) in between occasional bouts of oppressive Iranian backed Shia rule?
Iraq isn't a country, it's a mess on a map. Break it up now.
To do so would be to do no more than to honour the promise we made the Kurdish people at the conclusion of World War One (and shamefully broke) when we guaranteed them an independent state.
You'll see. The people who talk to me do not only talk to me.
DeletePartitioning Iraq would be beyond catastrophic.